Ok, so I seem to be slacking off on my updates, hopefully I can catch it early and get back into the habit. Here’s what’s going on in my little slice of the Chicagoland…
Two weekends ago all the Midwest LVCers got together at Pine Lake camp in the Dells area of Wisconsin. The camp was very beautiful and situated in the middle of a pine forest. Made me feel like I was back in the Pacific Northwest! We had some great discussions and I felt that this retreat the discussions were much more balanced topic-wise.
I participated in a transportation panel with another volunteer from Chicago, one from Milwaukee, and two from the twin cities. It was neat to hear some of the different problems of transportation faced by the cities. The twin cities had just gone through an awful bus strike. There was finally a settlement, but when service started back many stops were eliminated, and other service cut. The twin cities LVCers also noticed that ridership had gone way down. One bright spot was that the cities are currently working on a demo train that will take tourists from the airport to major destinations like downtown and the Mall of America. It also goes down a busy street so hopefully it will also benefit some of the inhabitants. If all goes well on the first segment they will hopefully extend service elsewhere in the cities. In Milwaukee a big problem is the city’s segregation. It is a classic northern city that experienced industrial shutdowns and white flight, so that the current city has a downtown with few jobs and a lot of people who are a racial/ethnic minority and low income while the jobs and the people who are white moved out to the suburbs. The city is extremely dependent on the automobile for transportation, yet there is a high rate of car non-ownership in the downtown neighborhoods. Without good public transit people downtown are not able to get to jobs, contributing to the infamous cycle of poverty. Unfortunately, the Milwaukee LVCers attest that although they do have a bus system it is a very slow form of transportation, and often unreliable. We Chicago folks focused on the disparities in transit between the different parts of the city (really nice in the north, not so nice in the south and west) and how these tie in with the different demographics and urban development patterns between the different parts (generally although certainly not exclusively the north is richer, whiter, and more densely settled with lots of stuff located very near the trains while the south is poorer, blacker, and less densely settled with highways, vacant lots and factories near the trains).
We also had issue discussions on heterosexism and on worker’s rights. We unfortunately had to make dinner during the worker’s rights presentation so didn’t get to hear much on it. The heterosexism one was interesting. We had a series of discussion questions, which we talked about in small groups. Some of the questions we looked at were when first found out about different sexual identities, when we first encountered incidents of homophobia, what heterosexism consists of, etc.
There were four skill-sharing sessions where different volunteers can teach others their crafts and hobbies. I got to learn how to quill and learn about gardening (we even got seeds to take home and plant on our balcony!). There were also workshops on papermaking and on origami. The pea Melissa and I planted in a Dixie cup during the gardening section sprouted two days ago. I was so excited I ran around the house screaming. My housemates got further proof that I am insane, not that they really needed it.
At work I’m in a slight lull as I just turned in our annual progress report for the Renaissance Care Network housing project (I talked about it in earlier letters if you want to read up on it). It is amazing to me how long it takes to do things when you have to coordinate information gathering among a lot of different sources. In this case I needed to get information about services provided from three different agencies. It is supposed to be sent to us monthly but there were, of course, a few gaps that I then had to beg for. In addition, I found out that there are demographic questions required on the APR that we haven’t been getting from our agencies so I also had to send a request for that information and then get it back. Then I had to update last year’s narrative portion of the report and get it checked by two different people here at AFC. I also had to give part of the report to our finance department so they could attach dollar figures to all the services. All told it took well over a month to put the report together! At first I wondered why HUD gave us a whole 90days from the end of our program year to turn in the report. Now I know why J
After taking a week off from riding because of weather and retreat I was back out biking full force last week. Saturday was wet and miserable so there were only 5 brave souls out for the training ride. The three guys wimped out (ok, so one of them had taken a pretty bad fall and we had gone several miles with the rain getting heavier) and us two “caboose” gals went bravely on. Lucky for us the rain slacked off again, so the ride wasn’t too bad. Sunday was cold but sunny, so of course I didn’t bike that much L I did make it to church but then I had to come back and do laundry and some other chores I was behind on. I would have MUCH rather been out on my bike. Fundraising is also going great. The amazing gals of Broadway’s women’s support group made announcements and set up a booth in the fellowship hall after church. They raised over $200 for me, putting me WAY closer to the minimum I need to ride. They also started a t-shirt that has everyone’s signatures on it so I can take them with me on the ride! I also got lots more red ribbons to tie to the back of my bike.
Saturday was AFC’s big fundraising gala. I helped with setup so got to see the AMAZING decorations. I didn’t stay for the party, since it didn’t seem quite like it would be my thing (the band was an ABBA tribute band, and I don’t even know who ABBA is, a big feature was the open bar, and tickets for tables were multiple thousands of dollars…). I hear it was pretty amazing though. I’ll let you know when I hear how much funds it raised.
This weekend was really relaxing. Friday night I cooked eggplant parmesan for the housemates. It turned out pretty good, but of course I am biased. Saturday morning I joined 4 other ride for AIDS participants on a 50-mile training ride. It was supposed to hail and have big lightning storms but instead we had beautiful weather. We rode up through the forest preserve along the North Branch of the Chicago River to the conservatory. On the way back we rode the old Green Bay trail. Saturday afternoon Melissa and I planted seeds that Emily (a Chicago LVCer who works at an urban garden) gave us. Soon we can hopefully transfer them to pots on the beautiful new porch our landlord put on. Then we’ll get to eat fresh summer squash, peas, cukes, spinach, and peppers! Sunday I went to the early service at Broadway and then biked down to the Chicago Temple where I got to play hand bells!
Part of the Sunday fun was to hear both pastors report on the UMC General Conference that was just held in Pittsburgh. Both thought the church had made some poor decisions by adding language that further codified the exclusion of homosexuals in our church. Very good sermons considering our gospel was the giving of the commandment to Love. Needless to say, I am one of those United Methodists who would have voted with the minority (that is getting larger each general conference!) that prefers inclusion. The biggest ironies for me are: 1) We UMs can’t even agree that we disagree about homosexuality (a motion amending our discipline to state that Christians disagree about the compatibility of homosexuality with Christian faith was voted down) 2) We still say we want to be the church of "Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors" yet we not only confirmed existing language, but added further language to our discipline that restricts who can be considered a "good Christian". Sigh. Well at least we agreed that we could boycott Taco Bell (for taking advantage of tomato pickers). Here is a link to the UMC website if you want to explore more about what was decided at General Conference: www.umc.org
GROWL. I took my bike in to the shop yesterday to get it checked over before the ride, so of course it is supposed to be sunny today and tomorrow and then start raining again Thursday afternoon, which of course is when I will get my bike back :( Sigh. It was expensive too. Whine Whine Whine.
At AFC this week I have been working on a report about three focus groups. We contracted with someone to actually conduct them with clients in three downstate Illinois cities, I just get to write about it. We are going to use the information to help in the development of trainings for case managers to help them integrate prevention messages along with the other care they provide. It has been really interesting. On Monday we have a program staff retreat where we get to talk about how things are going and figure out where to go from here. Should be pretty interesting. We are holding it upstairs in the pent house of our building. I found out the sad news that two of the co-workers who sit near me will be moving downstairs :( I will really miss having them right there to talk to. Fortunately they will still only be a couple of floors away, and it is probably a good move for them since they will be working more closely with the policy department which fits the work they are doing better.
Last Saturday I biked over 65 miles! There were about a half dozen of us. We once again biked up to the conservatory, where 3 turned around leaving the slow but perseverant “cabooses” to chug on. We went up through the Chicago suburbs up a little past Fort Sheridan. We were ready to bike all the way to Wisconsin, but then realized that we needed to be able to bike home. On the way back home I shopped at the Conservatory’s bloom sale and got a couple of tomato and strawberry plants. Hopefully they will do ok on our porch.
Kevin decided after much struggle to leave his placement (he was a youth leader at our support congregation). He had a meeting with the Night Ministry (an organization that does direct van outreach to the homeless) yesterday morning, but I haven’t had a chance to talk to him since then. He is also talking to the Albany Park Community Council about the possibility of working with them on their youth programs. I really hope he can find something that fits him. If he doesn’t find a new placement, he has to leave, so I am REALLY hoping that he can find something, and really want it to be something he enjoys.
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